Slighty urgent first post

[deebee]

Hi all, my first post in this section, & silly question #1!!
Just bought a Pietta New Model Army; .44, colour case hardened frame & beautiful!!
After borrowing a BP at my club, loading & shooting 18 shots, I was hooked! Went straight to a gun shop & fell in love, & bought the above.
Now two questions I need answered quickly before I can go & break her in (gently )
FIRST I asked in shop for grease to put on top of charged ball, & they were out of stock. Like a pratt I forgot to ask what sort of grease is ok to use so I could get some elsewhere. In the book it says 'crisco' or hydraulic pump or veg grease.
Tell me what to get please, no brand names as they probably won't have it over here under that name.

SECOND guy in shop, who is an ardent BP shooter, sold me some F2 powder , which I assume is FFG & in the book on reading it at home, it says use FFFG.
Is this a problem or can I just use this batch up first?
Tried to ring shop but can't get through ATM
Cheers
Dave (I'll be back!)

[enfield2band]

You can use ordinary cooking fat over the balls. The idea is to stop flashover.
That is when you fire a shot and the flame sets off the other charges in the chamber.

Strictly speaking, greasing the cylinder should not be necessary. When you squeeze the ball into the chamber that should be an effective gas seal.

I never use grease on my pistol, and some indoor clubs ban it because of the mess it leaves on the floor.

I have only ever witnessed one flashover and that went round the back of the cylinder where the caps are and it set off the other five charges in the gun.
Fortunately, no one was injured, it bent the cylinder pin, and the gun looked like a banana.

There is no problem with the powder you have, just use it up.

Hope this helps.

[McTrucky]

I've always just used car grease. Seems to work fine, and is the cheapest and easiest to get option. Get a large medical syringe (without the needle), fill that with the grease at home, and once on the range it is easy and clean to lube each chamber as you load. Some peope use 'lollipop' sticks to lube the chambers, but this is messy.

And the BP you've bought will be fine. As long as it goes bang and smells like sulphur you know you are in business.

Cheers
McT

[deebee]

Thanks for the replies chaps. So any general purpose grease will do, as they don't sell lard over here?
Dave

[lilguy43uk]

I never use it as such but I use semi greased felt wads to try and keep any fouling soft.

Does it work? Does it Hell

[slowcoach]

Place balls in plastic bag, blob of grease inside and work them all around. Everything gets a smooth coating, lube and seal as you load.

[deebee]

This is not for lube ,but for anti flash over, as second post.
Guys at club use grease & , although I don't really like it, I think better safe than sorry.
NEXT question, shop didn't have a powder measure (running stock down for stock taking)
I bought some single dose capsule which are 25 grns on label. I need 12 - 15 grns of powder for my pistol. If I half fill these, will that do or have I got to be more accurate?
It looks as though I will have to order a measure & I wanted to shoot Saturday
db

[deebee]

Place balls in plastic bag, blob of grease inside and work them all around. Everything gets a smooth coating, lube and seal as you load.

Doesn't this include your fingers??

[deebee]

bump for bed
nite nite
db

[davederrick]

I bought some single dose capsule which are 25 grns on label. I need 12 - 15 grns of powder for my pistol. If I half fill these, will that do or have I got to be more accurate?

Dont get too anal about powder charges just yet, play around with it for a while. Accuracy isn't going to be amazing even if your powder measures are. 12-15gr seems a bit light, my NMA .44 currently gets fed 20gr & shoots much better than it did when it was on a diet.

[enfield2band]

As a rough guide use a .44 magnum case as a powder measure. It is a light load and you can work it up from there.

Some guns like a light charge and others shoot better with a heavy one. It is only by trying lots of different loads that you will find the best one for your gun.

[enduser]

instead of grease i use the green gel hand cleaner

[lilguy43uk]

This is not for lube ,but for anti flash over, as second post.

Of a genuine recorded incidence of flashover from the front of the cylinders?

In the heydays of thiese pistols, in an "Oh sh 1 t" situation (when screaming natives were intent on removing various parts of your anatomy), I'm sure that there was no time to worry about grease.

[harricook]

Welcome to the DARKSIDE

I posted this in response to a 'wads' question (only in June so not that long back !!) which again was a repost of an earlier thread

Search function - either search on GREASE or WADS - you will get LOADS of info

Grease is for keeping fouling soft NOT chainfires - get your balls the right size .

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ____________

The lead wont protect the powder from chain fire.I have seen a Le Mat fire 2 chambers and it has a Shaving of lead.

I do like the mythbusters theory though.lol.

Posted this waaaaaaay back in response to a similar question in the BP forum

Its all about having big enough balls (oooh Matron!) and soft lead

I use BP lube in 2 cylinders - just to keep fouling soft

__________________________________________________ __________________________

Hi
There was an article (which some say is flawed in how it tested) - which still makes a good read.

The closing paragraph I think ist the most important - It's all about your balls - not your lube in relation to chainfires !

quote "Remember: If you have loose fitting balls in your percussion revolver grease over the chambers will do nothing to prevent chainfires. The grease is blown away at the first shot anyway and if the ball combo is loose enough for a spark to pass it, well, no grease will prevent it from doing it. Use proper fitting balls!"

The full article
http://www.svartkrutt.net/articles/vis.php?id=13




DEEBEE - if you want some Allwoods BP lube (BPL) posted - then let me know & I'll send it to you .......

Cheers

Roy

PS - I am running 18gn in my ROA & Dad runs 16gn (which I think he is finding a little light) I used to have a stainless NMA target which I started out at 25gn & came down to 18gn

[McTrucky]

Responding to several points above:



"Lube all the ball by putting them in a bag with grease" - I disagree with this, just messy and introduces grease to the powder side of the ball in the chamber which must affect burning.

The lube is to seal the chamber AND lubricate the barrel and reduce buld up of lead and powder residue. Well lubed means easier to clean, and will maintain accuracy.

Flashover - oh yes it can happen. I used to have an ArmiSanMarco 1860 colt back in the late '80s but very rarely shot it as we still used full bore pistols back then - so I didn't know what I was doing with it, and had no internet to post such questions. I used to cast balls using a silly little brass display mould, using lead I dug out the back stop. So I ended up with balls that were of unknown size, poorly formed, and were very hard (everyone else was mixing lead to be as hard as possible in the .38/.357s). The gun would flash over and fire all six cylinders EVERY time, unless I used grease. Never seemed to do the gun any harm, the bottom ball gets foced into the loading ram, top ball went down the barrel - god knows where the other four went But as pointed out above, if I had used soft lead, or a better mould, then there would be a far better chance of bullet forming a seal with the chamber walls. And maybe I had a light powder load - I just used the measure on the flask that came with the gun, no idea what it was, just assumed it would be OK... A heavier load may have damaged the gun. Ahh the ignorance of youth....

Grease - there are a million opinions on this. I tend to start with the cheapest option, and if it works why change - hence I am using CarPlan general purpose grease which costs about £5 for a half litre tin. Hand cleaner, lard, whale blubber - take your pick and see how you get on. Personally I would avoid the 'organic' lubes (eg lard, butter etc) as I would expect them to create hard carbon deposits, where mineral based lubes tend to be cleaner when burned (just my experience/prejudice from two stroke engines...).

Powder weight - get a cheap electronic scale on 'an internet auction site that must remain nameless' (why??). Mine cost a fiver and is better to use than a balance scale - lets you set tare weights and so on. Then make a measure as described above - or buy some plastic vials that double as a measure and a store for taking the powder to the range. I have a thousand vials (liberated as surpluss from work) that each hold 20 grains of Swiss no.1. Perfect.

All of the above is just my opinion, - others will disagree and that's fine. I'm not saying 'I am right, do it myway', just giving pointers from my experience which may well be considerably less than others on here.

Cheers
McT

p.s. when can we come to shoot at your club? I'd love a cross channel challenge?